mr. reid: i now move to proceed to calendar number 568. mr. president, we have to move to executive session. i'm sorry about that. i ask that that be part of the agreement. the presiding officer: the question is on the motion to proceed to executive session. all in favor say aye. all opposed, say nay. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the motion is agreed to. the clerk will report. the clerk: the judiciary, pedro delgado hernandez of puerto rico to be united states district judge for the district of puerto rico. mr. reid: mr. president, there is a cloture motion at the desk that i ask to be reported. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the cloture motion. the clerk: cloture motion, we the undersigned senators in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate hereby move to bring to a close the debate on the nomination of pedro a. delgado hernandez of puerto rico to be united states district judge for the district of puerto rico, signed by 17 senators as follows -- mr. reid: i ask unanimous

consent the reading of the names not be necessary. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i ask consent the mandatory quorum under rule 22 be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i now prove -- move to proceed to legislative session. the presiding officer: the question is on the motion. all those in favor say aye. all those opposed say noah. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes have it. the motion is agreed to. mr. reid: i now move to proceed to executive session and calendar number 569. the presiding officer: the question is on the motion. all those in favor say aye. all opposed say nay. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the motion is agreed to. the clerk: pamela l. reeves of tennessee to be united states district judge for the eastern district of tennessee. mr. reid: there is a cloachtion at the desk -- cloture motion at the desk, mr. president. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: we the undersigned senators in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate hereby move to bring to a close the debate on the nomination of pamela l. reeves of tennessee to be united states district judge

for the eastern district of tennessee, signed by 18 senators as follows. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent the reading of the names be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i ask consent the mandatory quorum under rule 22 be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: mr. president, i move to legislative session. the presiding officer: the question is on the motion. all in favor say aye. all opposed say nay. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the motion is agreed to. mr. reid: i now move to proceed to executive session to consider calendar number 565. the presiding officer: the question is on the motion. all those in favor say aye. all opposed say nay. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the motion is agreed to. the clerk will report the nomination. the clerk: timothy l. brooks of arkansas to be united states district judge for the western district of arkansas. mr. reid: i send a cloture motion to the desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the cloture motion. the clerk: we the undersigned senators in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate hereby move to bring to a close the debate on the nomination of

timothy l. brooks of arkansas to be united states district judge for the western district of arkansas, signed by 18 senators as follows -- mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent the reading of the names not be necessary. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i ask consent that the mandatory quorum under rule 22 be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i now move to proceed to legislative session. the presiding officer: the question is on the motion. all those in favor say aye. all opposed say nay. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the motion is agreed to. mr. reid: i now move to proceed to executive session to consider calendar number 571. the presiding officer: the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the motion is agreed to. the clerk will report the nomination. the clerk: vince girdhari khabibulin rea of california to be united states district judge for the northern district of california. mr. reid: i ask the clerk report a cloture motion which has been filed. the clerk: we the undersigned senators in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate hereby move to bring to a close the debate on the nomination of

vince girdhari chhabria of california to be united states district judge for the northern district of california, signed by 17 senators as follows -- mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent the reading of the names not be read. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i ask consent the mandatory quorum under rule 22 be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i now move to proceed to legislative session. the presiding officer: the question is on the motion. all those in favor say aye. all opposed say nay. the ayes do have it. the motion is agreed to. mr. reid: i move to proceed to executive session to consider calendar number 636. the presiding officer: the clerk will report the nomination. the clerk: department of state, rose eileen gottemoeller of virginia to be undersecretary of state for arms control and national security. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent the reading -- let's see. where am i? i send a cloture motion to the desk. the clerk: cloture motion, we the undersigned senators in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate hereby move to

bring to a close the debate on the nomination of rose eileen gottemoeller of virginia to be under secretary of state for arms control and international security, signed by 17 senators as follows -- mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent the reading of the names not be read. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i ask consent the mandatory quorum under rule 22 be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i now move to proceed to legislative session. the presiding officer: the question is on the motion. all those in favor say aye. all thoopped say nay. the ayes do have it. mr. reid: is the motion to proceed to calendar number 389 pending? the presiding officer: it is pending. the clerk will report the cloture motion. the clerk: we the undersigned senators in accordance with provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate hereby move to bring to a close the motion on the motion to proceed on the childcare development and block grant act, signed by 17 senators as follows. mr. reid: i ask the reading of the names not be read. i ask unanimous consent the

mandatory quorum under rule 22 be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. reid: madam president, i ask unanimous consent that the quorum be terminated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum required under rule 22 be waived for the closings with respect to executive calendar number 659. the presiding officer: without objection.

mr. reid: madam president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. reid: i filed cloture on the child block grant -- childcare block grant. i have every assurance from my republican colleagues that that vote will not be necessary. i hope that is the case. it would be great if we could vitiate that, just move to start legislating on that. i have -- i believe that will be the case.

but sometimes it's a long time from today until next wednesday when the vote would occur, but i -- i really do believe it won't be necessary, and i hope that's the case. madam president, i indicated that i would say a few words about the man that does all the objecting -- or a lot of the objecting around here. we had the senator from kansas, junior senator from kansas come and say he objected to these judges being approved because the senior senator from iowa, the ranking member of the judiciary committee, asked him to do so. in recent days, senator grassley has criticized my management of the senate floor regarding nominations. the 19 members of the judiciary committee has said that i am responsible for gridlock because the filibuster reform will overuse the cloture. madam president, my friend, the

senior senator from iowa's past statements and recent actions has revealed it is obviously either a misunderstanding of what he said in the past or -- i will leave it at that. there are a lot of terms i could use but i won't use them, because these are things he said in the past that obviously he didn't mean at the time, or either that he has forgotten what he said. he once stood on the floor and strongly in favor of up-or-down votes on all nominations. he even said -- quote -- "filibustering a nominee into oblivion is misguided warfare and the wrong way for a minority party to leverage influence in the senate." close quote. that's what the man who is doing all the objecting, the senator who is doing all the objecting, what he said before. he also said -- quote -- "it's just plain hogwash to say that moving to make sure the rule is to give judicial nominees an up-or-down vote will hurt our

ability to re-establish fairness in the judicial nominating process. it is not going to hurt minority rights. these are direct quotes from him. it establishes what we call regular order as it has been for 214 years. it will be a fair -- it will be fair both to the republicans and democrats alike. all the majority leader wants to do is have a chance to vote on these nominees up or down. now, he could be easily talking about me. maybe even in the past he was talking about senator frist or senator lott, but it doesn't matter who has this job. that's what he's talking about. all the majority leader wants is to have a chance to vote these nominees up or down. if these individuals do not have 51 votes, they should be reject ed and should be rejected. but if these individuals do have 51 votes, then they should be confirmed. that's according to the constitution. that's what he said. and he said it here in may of a few years ago, may 23.

he also said, and this is another quote -- "let the debate -- let's debate the nominees and give our advice and consent. it's a simple yea or nay when called to the altar to vote. filibustering a nominee into oblivion is misguided warfare and the wrong way for the minority party to leverage and influence the senate. threatening to grind legislative activity to a standstill if they don't get their way is like being a bully in the school yard play ground. he said that. the senior senator from iowa said that. he further said let's do our jobs. nothing is nuclear about asking the full senate to take an up-or-down vote on judicial nominees. madam president, i'm not making this up. this is what he said. the man who has the audacity to come here to the floor and object, saying what a terrible thing it is that we're having up-or-down votes on these judges. he went on to say it's a way the senate has operated for years. the reality, he further said, is

that democrats are the ones who are turning the senate tradition on its head by installing a filibuster against the president's judicial nominees. that's what he said. but, madam president, he slows down senate business even on nominees he supports. how do you like that? this -- this week alone, the senior senator from iowa repeatedly voted against cloture on nominations, moments later. beth freeman, northern district of california, james donato, northern district of california, james moody, eastern district of arkansas, jeffrey meyer, connecticut. he voted to invoke the filibuster rule and then turns right around and votes for these judges. his obstruction, though, i'm

sorry to say, isn't limited to nominations. when the senate considered s. 744, the comprehensive immigration bill, senator grassley objected to the consideration or adoption of republican or bipartisan amendments on at least four occasions. he objected to consideration or adoption of republican or bipartisan amendments on at least four occasions. when challenged, senator grassley admitted to violation of senatorial courtesy. here's what senator leahy said. is it not a fact that the first amendment that was brought up here was a bipartisan one of mine and senator hatch? shortly thereafter, the senator from iowa came with an amendment following the normal courtesy, i allowed mine to be set aside so he could bring up his. so isn't it a fact that we asked if he might set aside for some noncontroversial amendments on either side, he told me he could not. the senator is correct.

mr. president, you can't talk out of both sides of your mouth unless somebody understands they're listening to what you say both times. and with a ranking member of the judiciary committee, the senior senator from iowa, he's talking out of both sides of his mouth and the people of iowa should check this out, see what he said and what he does. so he can come and criticize all he wants, all he wants, criticizing me but he should be based upon facts, not standing his own statements on their head because he can't have it both ways.

mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent that we proceed as a senate to a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak therein for ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent to can't consider the following resolutions en bloc which whenever brought before the senate earlier today. that's s. res. 366, 367, and 368. the presiding officer: without objection. the senate will proceed to the measures en bloc. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preambles be agreed to, the motion to reconsider considered made and laid on the table and with each measure there be no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: there are four bills

at the desk. i ask for their first reading. the presiding officer: the clerk will read the titles of the bills for the first time. the clerk: s. 2062, a bill to authorize members of congress to bring an action for -- declaratory and injunkettive relief in response to a written statement by the president or any other official in the executive branch directing officials of the executive branch to not enforce a provision of law. s. 2066, a bill to amend title 18, united states code, to prohibit the intentional discrimination of a person or organization by an employee of the internal revenue service. s. 2067, a bill to prohibit the department of the treasury from assigning tax statuses to organizations based on their political beliefs and activities. h.r. 3865, an act to prohibit the internal revenue service from modifying the standard for

determining whether an organization is operated exclusively for the promotion of social welfare for purposes of section 501-c-4 of the internal revenue code of 1986. mr. reid: i ask for a second reading on each of these four measures but object to my own request. the presiding officer: objection having been heard, the bills will have their second reading on the next legislative day. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent when the senate completes its business today it adjourn until monday, march 13, 2014, following the prayer prairp, the morning business be deemed expired, and the time for the two leaders reserved for use later in the day. following any leader remarks, the senate be in a period of morning business until 5:00 bm with senators permitted to speak therein for ten minutes each, following morning business senate proceed to executive session to consider the nomination of debo p. adegbile

adegbile -- let's try that again -- debo p. adegbile. picked up my searchlight accent with that, i'm sure. with up to 30 minutes of debate, equally divided and controlled in the usual form prior to the cloture vote on the nomination and pursuant to rule 22, friday, february 28, count as an intervening day. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: the next roll call vote will be at 5:30 on monday. if there is no further business to come before the senate, i ask it adjourn under the previous order. the presiding officer: the the presiding officer: the

>> what was this bill all about and why did it stall in the senate? >> well, thanks for having me, bill. the bill itself is sponsored by the chairman of the senate veterans' affairs committee from vermont. he called this the most significant veterans benefit performed bill in decades. among the things it does a kind of touches on a lot of things. it's a major expansion of va

health care but among other things it does, it produces a dental pilot program to see if the va can in the future make it feasible to provide full dental care for veterans. it's an expansion of the program for at home care for wounded veterans. it extends the eligibility for in-state tuition under the g.i. bill so that it loosens the in state requirements for veterans who are in a state going to the public college received in-state tuition as long as they're living there and attending school. it authorizes about 27 medical facility leases in 18 states, along with puerto rico. and among the other things it does, it finishes off the repeal of -- congress has been chipping

away at the last couple of months put into the ryan-marie budget deal spent as a bill on the senate floor for a couple of days so what was this roadblock if you? >> there were a number of things, and what eventually stopped in its tracks was there was a point made by jeff sessions on the budget committee, and basically because fiscal year 2014, the fiscal year we're in right now, it's increased budget authority by about 261 billion, over the cap of the ryan murray budget law that congress agreed to a couple months ago. so they voted 66-41 which was just four shy needed to way that. >> tweeted about that same the senate falls for votes short. republicans voting yes. why didn't other republicans support its?

>> there were a number of things. a lot of them want to stick to both parties gaps in the budget law. a number of them don't like the bill in general but it was an opportunity to put that come to kind of put on the shelf. a number of republicans have expressed concern about expanding the health care, and that would flood an already overburdened system. a number of -- concerned with the way senator sanders wanted to pay for the bill. so there were a number of issues, not just that mandatory number. >> one of the headline grabbing him issues on iran, what was that all about? >> basically what republicans have kind of been circling the wagon on in the last few days is an amendment, substitute and by the ranking member on the veterans' affairs committee. and it, as i said, the

substitute amendment that would kind of near some of those benefits provisions but in addition it had another round of iran sanctions which is more or less what was proposed by senators menendez and kirk in the last couple of months. again, their contention was eight and 59 cosponsors, and they thought that it was time to cut a vote on the floor. >> you talked about chairman sanders, you attended his press conference afterwards, you said, and he said he rejects the idea the veterans bill was a political issue. says it could've been a political win for both parties. any chance it will be revived anytime soon? >> that's unclear at this point. the budget point of order against the bill was a pretty strong blow for the legislation. under the rules now because that point of order was sent back to the committee and the idea is that they have to now make

corrections to the bill to comply with the budget law. so senator sanders said he will go back at it, and we will have to see from there because this was sent back to the commute and it's a fairly procedure below. >> , o'brien is a defense report on cq roll call. connor o'brien, thank you for joining us. >> thank you, bill. >> up next to mckenzie center bob corker speaking order today with reports of the "christian science monitor" breakfast in washington, d.c. topics range from a situation in ukraine parliamentary procedures in the senate. the republican lawmaker talked about the recent decision by workers at a car plant in his home state to vote down an effort to unionize. this is about one hour. >> okay, folks. here we go.

i'm dave cook from the monitor. thanks for coming. yesterday senator bob corker ranking member from the senate foreign relations committee and influential member of the banking committee. this is his first visit with our breakfast group and we thank them for coming. senator corker i is a south carolina native who grew up in chattanooga and graduated from university of tennessee with a degree in industrial management. he starts his own construction company which grew rapidly in which he sold before turning 40. in 1994, our guest ran for the senate, finishing second in the republican primary to bill frist. later that year his name tennessee's commissioner of finance and administration. in 2001 he was elected mayor of chattanooga and in 2006 he was elected to the senate and winning handily in 2012 with almost 65% of the vote. that's the biographical portion from now on to the mechanical details. as always we are on the record

here. please no live blogging or tweeting or other means of filing while the breakfast is underway. there's no embargo, when the session ends except that a friend to c-span agreed not to air video of the session until one hour after the breakfast inns to give reporters in the room time to file their in depth tweet. finally, if you'd like to ask a question, send me a subtle, nonthreatening signal and i'll do my best to call on one and all in the timely. i will start out by offering because to make some opening comments and then we will move to questions from around the table. with that, thanks again. appreciate it. >> thank all of you for coming and i want to start by telling to that i apologize for taking so long to be a. i know we had scheduled a number of times, and both ended up happening and other things, but actually relish the opportunity to talk his way to so many people and to have questions asked that may be of interest, so thank you providing the opportunity. i'm only going to give just a

small amount of opening comments. i've been here seven years, and you know, having come from the kind of background out again from, it's been an interesting experience. and i've found that really in so many ways, a u.s. senator can make a difference without actually passing legislation. and that's what we had hoped and have done i think in several occasions. one of the things that i think about often is when this time and, being back involved in my community that i love so much, and hopefully at some point in time being back involved in the business arena that it came from. but that's what i'm leading up to now, and that is, i've been very involved for years in chattanooga and love the business career that ahead, the ability because of some success there to be involved cynically

and things that mattered, and ended up pursuing something. i thought a lot of people in chattanooga didn't have decent housing when it was a young man and felt like that was something i could do something about. so i led an initiative that ended up over time helping about 10,000 families there to have decent affordable housing. again, it's about community interests that ended up bringing me to the united states senate. we have something really important happening in our community over the last several weeks. when i was mayor of chattanooga, which iran from a really as a civic endeavor, not as a political effort but members of my commute asked me to be mayor and to me was a great opportunity for civic leader to be involved in a community that was going, undergoing a needed to go under more transformation. one of the things that i did while i was mayor was to build an industrial site and have been interchange built into it and

when i became a senator one of the first calls i made was the volkswagen to try to encourage them to come to chattanooga. ..

this time they sell the agreement that said that only they could be inside the plan on company time talking to employees. only they could have space within the planned. they tell the grand also said that volkswagen executives could not voice any opposition whatsoever to the uaw. with that in mind and with the quickie election call a think you know that with after two years of car check activity equity election was called and votes were to take place. obviously i became involved. i knew that we were already a experiencing difficulties in our state in recruiting businesses to our state and especially to southeast tennessee because of the discussions. many people did not realize this, but there are companies that justin not want to locate next to a uaw organizing facility. i care deeply about our community. it is something that at 11 has

gone through tremendous change and transformation. i look forward to going home every weekend. so one of the things that has not been reported that the uaw has been spreading rumors that the only way i knew was going to come to the plan and double its size, the only way that was going to happen was if the plant was organized by the uaw. obviously that was having an effect on people who work there. and so on wednesday night during the course of a 3-day election after about 1,000 votes of 1300 had been cast and made this statement and i was assured that even if the uaw did not win the chattanooga was still exploits choice. i talked to collectors often. i believe -- i know that chattanooga is the first choice. so for some reason the uaw has

jumped on that in its appealing. i think that -- i just want to say that in the event the national labor relations board were to somehow say that elected officials cannot voice opinions are voiced concerns of what they know, i think that is going to be a landmark assessment. so as you know, the uaw has appealed. we will be interesting to see a labor relations board reacts in case after case after case, a predominantly when democratic senator seven voicing support for union organizers which they have ruled that in fact political leaders, public officials and the average into the fresh be -- for free speech. i hope that the uaw appeal with president obama weighing in on the same boat, if you remember, hoping that they would organize while voting was still taking place, i hope that the national labor relations board will understand and realize the magnitude of what they will be

deciding and in no way will try to muzzle community leaders from expressing their point of view. with that you want to talk about ukraine's, whenever you wish to talk about. i am glad to do it. >> one of the things i like is that i no there are reporters around the table and know more about certain subjects that i. since we have certain people here to ask you about the uaw, let me ask you about the ukraine . watching evens unfold their, putting a, you know, ground forces in western russia, additional things happening this morning, what is your view of what, if anything, the u.s. can do and your assessment so far of how the obama administration has reacted?

>> we had the prime minister of georgia just the other day. we have a coffee with an -- with him the other day. i was the first -- yes. i was the first u.s. official to uh -- when russia came into georgia and the first official to go up to witness the bombings and what russia had done with their tanks and other artillery. and what you see happening right now in the ukraine brings back those memories. there is concern. another have been reports that russia is printing of passports. if you remember, that is exactly what they did in georgia. they sent passports and to many of the russian oriented people there. over time they claim that they did not come into the country to protect people that had an

affiliation with russia. and so, you know, you saw the exercises that were announced yesterday. obviously they have a very important naval base, very important naval base. and dominion know, i continue to be concerned that we will see a replay of what we saw in georgia because i think the interest there is more important to russia than was the case. so, you know, i will say there was a briefing a couple of days ago. at think she is with what she has to work with doing an outstanding job. i really do. she is definitely leaning forward. the question will become again the west, the united kingdom and that yesterday's act quickly enough but also responsibly to deal with many of the financial issues that exist.

obviously russia can do this much more quickly for lots of reasons. the question is, well we've react quickly enough. can we get the imf to reform process is moving along quickly enough that we feel comfortable with loan guarantees and the other kinds of things that the economy needs. in the interim, can we make those proclamations commission week shows strength in the region to try to deter russia from doing other things that are either soft partitioning of the country are candidly doing something more aggressive militarily. what we don't want to do is raise tensions in the area. on the other hand, you know, one of our staffers suggested us announcing some new strategic relationship or doing something the shows the -- and i'm talking about militarily, doing something the shows that we have strong interest in the region, that we stand by their region.

at the same time, what we don't want to do, i don't think, is to raise tension specifically in that area. i am concerned about what bruton is going to do. we had a tremendous sang the other day, and it is evident that this is a tremendous stress to him. for people inside russia to see what the citizens are doing is a threat to him. if ukraine moves to the west which we have had a good three or four days in that regard obviously it will shake russia's future in a big way because no doubt the country will migrate more that way. if he is able to pull them back and some form or fashion, obviously at think that it pushes them back in the other direction. i hope that the president -- we were just talking about the things that our office needs to do to push the administration to really take a strong position near.

you know, right now appears that the president really does not have a plan, not to be pejorative, but as so many other foreign policy crises, and seems that we are catching up and to dealing with events ad hoc as they move along. >> one last one from me and then we will go to dave share person, sean higgins, rosie gray. you were part of the bipartisan bicameral group that discussed taxes. a plan this week. agreed with limited enthusiasm. we will not be able to finish the job. is the beginning of a conversation. >> not in that order.

it is the beginning of a conversation. my question to you is is tax reform done for the year? >> that is a quick answer. >> a tremendous amount of work. he leads the chairmanship. i was at the first meeting. trying to reenact what happened years ago. we met in an irish pub to try to begin talking about tax reform. obviously it never went anywhere. i think kemp has done something good candidly by laying out what he believes after many, many conversations with republicans and i might highlight democrats, what he thinks tax reform might well look like. i see no way that it will be dealt with this year. as a matter of fact, i see no way anything important will be dealt with this year other than i actually believe that there is

more than a glimmer of hope that we're going to address gst reform. we have been working for a long time together with the administration to craft a bill, said bill 1217 to deal with housing finance reform. based on conversations we're having right now with the banking committee leaders i think we are getting to a place where we may have a markup in the very near future, and it is the one thing that on a bipartisan basis that actually has substance that i think we may well do this year, but tax reform certainly is not going to happen this year. i don't think immigration is going to happen this year. obviously i would like to see both of them have been. acting pro-growth tax reform is something that our nation badly needs. i was glad to see a dynamic scoring, and. that is a huge step forward, and candidly it is a victory for our nation to actually be able to measure those kinds of things

and account for those kinds of things. we aren't going to see tax reform happen this year in my opinion. >> questions. >> senator bob corker, they say you tried to intimidate workers. you try to negotiate a deal. can you respond? >> i probably should have mentioned that in my opening comment. thank you. back in 2008, back when i was on the banking committee as the most junior member asset and the cameramen slap at the end of the deaths and was just dumbfounded one day. we have a hearing or we have that three -- the detroit three come in asking for $25 million. i don't know if you remember,

but the end of the hearing one advantage to have the advantage you have is you can ask both questions. my question was how were you going to divide up the money. well, we will divided amongst ourselves. pretty interesting for three companies and the uaw to ask for 25 billion. we reconvene in three weeks because the answer was beyond belief. in that time i spent a tremendous amount of time with analysts in new york and other places understanding these three companies and the uaw. i think you know that later on i ended up in pretty intense negotiations with chris dodd, the three detroit companies in one room and the uaw with us and the foreign relations business office again and multiple meetings with the uaw, multiple meetings with the big three. i became very aware of what the

uaw interests were. it was not the company or companies it was solely their survival. and with that certainly when they came to chat and area and began doing what they're doing i had an inside, i felt like coming into what the uaw was about. as a matter of fact, bob king had been transparent about what his goals were. i don't know if i would have said these things, but he has publicly said that they cannot survive as egg growing entity unless they're able to unionize the transplant. let me use that word. when they were meeting with me that in 2008 transplant was a pejorative term. looked down on these companies. there were not american companies. they did not employ americans even though gm has measured to the major plants in china and other places. they were different.

i had in sites that were useful. obviously i wanted to share. was apparent that the uaw was in chattanooga for one reason, hours. the workers and already made more than workers in other plants for the same length of time. the plant is the most environmentally safe plant in the world, lead certified. there is nothing like it. so the workers realized that there was really nothing that the uaw could bring to them. by the way, they are the largest shareholder one of the competitors, general motors, which is interesting, but the fact is those things came into play, my knowledge of the uaw came into play. let me tell you this, i think my involvement from their perspective, you know, i probably am public in a number one because if you think about what happened to allow whites are right. if you think about what happened

, in the second banking hearing, sitting there with wagner and others, i wrote out those five what is now called the course of principles. and if you remember, hank paulson when the bush administration which was so ready to get out of town by january 20th and did not want a major company bankruptcy on their watch. there were looking for an end january 20th. they wanted that to come as quickly as possible. the bush administration near christmas the extended the 25 billion in credit but but the corker principles as part of that. paulson called me up morning. the president called me up morning. fortunately obama capp's those principles and place. if you remember, when emanuel first came into office many would go up and meet with him at the white house. we are falling as principals. he embodied those.

the end of the day they forced the uaw to be competitive with the transplant. i thought they did it in at very odd way. the fact is there has no doubt been pent-up anger as a result. >> senator, a diplomatic negotiation on the syrian crisis has ground to a halt. problems will not be pushed to negotiate seriously until there is more pressure on the ground. to use the u.s. -- >> you know, that was happening, by the way, at the same general

time that these negotiations are taking place in geneva. i know he shared this with other senators. look, we are looking at something that is going to change the balance on the ground you know, we continue to ask what that might be. i think you remember probably that foreign relations committee thankfully pass something out on a very strong growth. 15-32 way back when it would have mattered to arm -- let me underline that to much of our and trained the vetted moderate rebel groups. at that time, as you remember, a dress was the person that we were casting our lot behind. for some reason -- and by the way i think you have seen public announcements by the administration. they said something is really about covert activity that i don't think i ever heard people announced before.

it is an unusual way of knowing about foreign-policy, but the fact is that nothing of significance has really ever occurred. i have been the camps, on the border of syria. obviously i was there prior to the conflict. i have been to the camps enough to wear actually recognize and know some of the refugees who were there. on several occasions i have told them that help is on the way. our country is going to arm the moderate rebels and continue wars strongly humanitarian effort. those things just have not occurred. obviously this thing is now in a very different place. i think that we need to continue to look at what that might mean. i think when our -- what we might do in that regard, i am very disappointed in the administration.

their still getting killed. and i don't know whether something to demonstrate additional perrot bomb being dropped on citizens with nails and screws. this administration is very involved. passed out of the committee arming of the bennett moderate rebels. we thought that was actually going to happen. there has been an intense debate whether that kind of activity should take place covertly for whether it needs to take place under title ten through the defense department. that debate never came to a head. nothing has ever happened. again, to me, things are much more dire. we are in a much worse place. you know, there is no way i see him coming to geneva where he thinks he is winning to

negotiate himself out of office. i just on see that happening. i will tell you, i was just in saudi arabia and bahrain recently. as people watched what we did and in any place that i go in the world today, as they watched what we did, as they watched the president talk about the red line, as they watched us jump into the arms of syria, as they watched, you know, the foreign relations committee actually pass, which i was proud to do, and authorization for the use of force, but as they watched as to the things that we have done to basically figure out how to be uninvolved in syria their questioning, where is america. what has happened to america. i know he is not handling the syrian file any more, but i arrived one night at 1130 and plans to begin meetings the next

morning with a crown prince and others who. he had a plane waiting on the runway. he asked me to come by his palace. i met with him until 3:00 in the morning where he was totally and exasperated with the fact that they had expected a call when we were going to use military force never called, not our administration, to let them know that the plan had changed. i could not be more disappointed i know that many people in the administration and disappointed with the fact that there has not been a coherent policy. is far more difficult to on the ground right now. i'll tell you, a deteriorating

effect, not a good leader. the fact is that this is now a regional conflict where every single one of our intelligence officials tells you that this is now coming. this is a place where g how this fire concentrating. a place that over time will create the same kind of risk for our country like other places have done in the past. [inaudible question] >> look. for months i have known that top management and volkswagen wanted

to locate the suv linage in new york to go back and look at the speech at the detroit auto show, he said everything but that. so this has not been near news. the issue has been -- as a matter of fact at one point they had planned to even announce the fact that there were coming in advance of the union but taking place. i have known for some time that chattanooga was their first choice. one of the interesting and yet i have also known that the state was they clearly stated was concerned about their incentive package and wanted to know if there would be a uaw plan or not. we have a laboratory, at two plants now, one is spring hill which has been anything but a

success. the state was involved in helping it be there. right down the road we had a nissan facility. it has been a model facility. it continues to add jobs. as people look at the success of the two there were questions. candidly it was built to add another line. it was built to double its size to make a productive. we were concerned that if something happened to change the balance for some reason states became this interested in putting incentives a play that it would ultimately go to mexico and over the next 15 year time frame this plant could cause

itself to not be competitive anymore and the jobs we had could go away. saw. >> look, five years of involvement with a company like this from the very beginning until now you may not developing relationships, not just the people of pin down the line and inside the company but also with those people like doing the site selection process, people involved in crisis management. i obviously am opposed to the uaw. at the most of you know i was a card-carrying union member myself. the company that i had that operated all of the country building shopping centers come

my employee union carpenters and laborers. was a chesty. i am not anti-union. that job destruction that the uaw has been involved in coming down to just over 300,000 members from a million and half. i have seen the job destruction that is taking place. look, im -- i was very aware and have been for some time what looks like in wants to do. i certainly was assured that the gist says the company said that the outcome of this load matters not relative to how our selection. i was assured that if the workers voted against the uaw they would still shoes in chattanooga. that is all clouded with the challenge is taking place in the

future and things that have been said, but was aware that inside the plant the uaw was spreading word within the plant, they were the ones that were inside the plan. i am talking like and right now. i am not inside the plan. inside the plant there were efforts to scare the employees that if they did not vote for the uaw the plant was not coming there. we outside speaking free-speech that that was not the case or assuring the workers that that was not the case. >> have only got about 20 minutes left. >> thank you. senator, going back to the train much attention has been given by the international quests to the release of former premier.

there is considerable talk about her. others say that she was totally in competence while she was a premier beforehand would not be a good choice, obvious sympathy for her notwithstanding. we seem to be in a situation not unlike libya or iraq where we do not know what comes next. do you have any thoughts on this or clues as to where we go from here? >> as to whether she will be the person or not i know that all of you reported that a response that she got when she visited was both good and bad. she was not overwhelmingly appreciated by a crowd.

i don't know that i have the ability. that began the ability to speak to this issue passionately. i did, glad that i did, and am thrilled for my community and the workers for the outcome. on this issue the people of the ukraine will have to speak. if you look at the country massive structural problems, massive structural problems. yet the country really does not have the institution today to deal with those. i think having another official, speaking by the way, directly to this person are this individual, but to have someone who comes in and does not have the mandate to change the nature of how the government there operates and to just returned to the other side during exact his same kind of thing is not spoiling to be

something else will bode well for the country. energy sectors of the massive amount of corruption that takes place, those things have got to be dealt with. candidly one of the roles that the imf is best at playing has been that mechanism that helps force those changes without an outside 4825 forcing mechanism in this -- is on like the that the ukraine will be a will to -- it will take them strong, strong . >> the effort to attach the main veteran groups have come out against it.

>> you know, i -- the senate to vote have been here seven years now. the senate has been on the verge of a death spiral for several months. when you have a leader -- and i said this directly. this is in his office. when you have of the year that is totally banned on ensuring that there is no debate you will find people using all kinds of avenues to try to bring something to the floor for debate it is beyond belief. it is the greatest deliberative body you have friends and ellis

side of the aisle of just as frustrated as many it's reprehensible. reprehensible away the united states and operates. i think most of vino that i have done everything i can to reach out. i spent an inordinate amount of time with the earlier this summer dealing with the nuclear option very outspoken. a tremendous amount of time i decided myself on november the

20th win in this made up crisis came out if you look at the a executive calendar at that time, the leader could have moved through the executive calendar and of three weeks if you use the rules we already had what i finally decided that the seven years and candidly sometimes in the minority you have an opporunity to affect things more than if you are in the majority. it takes 60 votes to make things happen. you find yourself if you're willing to try to solve problems . seeing what's happening in my state senate, it well not ever function with what we now have in place. it is not going to.

and i'm going to do everything that i can. this past recess i spent a week traveling the country. i have never done that. i want to see the send function again. i want to see estivate things. the majority gets a set the agenda but the minority had their opportunity to amend. what that means is you have to take tough votes. senator reid is unwilling to announce the -- he is on the land for his majority members to be in a position of taking tough votes which is what this is all about. i understand that there will be all kinds of ways that minorities will attempt to have things heard that let's face it, less think about this, the biggest foreign relations issue facing our nation that has come about in recent times.

one that we have been dealing with for 20 years, we have something occurring in the united states senate is kept from debating that issue. that is totally reprehensible. if the president does not like what the senate and house of representatives has to say, he can veto it. i don't understand. there are some many issues that have been this way. the numbers of minority amendments that we have had in the last six months, i don't know, five or six, five or six maybe. that is beyond belief. i understand the frustration that people have been the avenues that people are taking.

unfortunately because we have someone who is willing to debate the major issues of the day. >> concerned about the fact that there are no more than 40 ambassadors who have been waiting more than 100 days. when they get to the full senate and will be held up. what a you going delicate this done if anything? to your republican colleagues who are concerned, not having ambassadors and some of these countries, saudi arabia as one of them, what if anything to you doing?

>> we want to move back as quickly as we can adjust tell whether from secretary cheri yesterday thinking me for moving the nominees as quickly through as leah. they want to get there kids in school. the kids and not coming mid-year . it was uncomfortable for some members to do that, but it seemed like the right thing to do. one of the things -- and i don't know of this has been discussed publicly or not. at the end of the year you know because you cover these things closely with typically move out a ton of nominees. there was already an agreement before the notable -- november november 20th action to move

for the nominees through by unanimous consent. what has happened is they take this unprecedented action, and you understand that he asked the parliamentarian that he appointed if he could do something parliamentarian said no. he then moves to override that with 51 votes. what has happened is the leader, leader mikhail has informed using other a examples which is the time to debate. again, senator reid actually cost the state department nominees so, you know, it is

unfortunate. hopefully at some point we will return to the rules that have been long established. this type of thing has not happened in 200 years of senate activity or in the middle of the session something like this occurred. i will say, i believe that if mcconnell is the majority leader after this session is over you will see how people are able to use the rule it does mean you have to work all week long. does not -- it does mean you don't work just three days a week. it does mean a you have got to use, as you mentioned, smelling of the jet fuel at the end of the weak to cause the end of a debate on a bill. there are ways of doing that. other leaders have done it and it is unfortunate. the senator has taken the action

that he has taken which has had the impact of now as having these empty posts because obviously if you understand his position, though he -- dislike overseeing in russia committee gave no push back from the united states. why not do the things that i'm doing. if you don't have any push back and obviously people see the way to do even more of those things. >> run down every one of those nominees. >> that will let the pressure of a little bit at a time because as i mentioned there is unanimous consent agreement to let these through with no. because of what the senator did

things have slowed down. >> senator, you have this morning. i was just wondering if you could talk about the relations they you see between the white house and the democrats. >> the people back, did not enjoy it. >> i'm not going to the -- but in the big picture would it be helpful to have those again? >> i tell you, look, i wake up every day. you have to. okay. you know, is a brand new day. good night's sleep. let's go. what a privilege it is to represent people of this country . candidly, let's face it, i

represent tennessee, but the things that i am involved in -- i am not a parochial senator. and focus on the big issue of the day. and tennessee has gotten used to that, not because of someone like myself, but we have gotten good centers in tennessee in the past and they expect them to be involved in the big issues of the day. so i wake up with optimism. i will tell you, the dinners that we had, they were good. the president handled himself very good. top people. he knew the policies that people had put forth. aware of who they were. i have to tell you, he did a good job of these dinners. that led to, as you know, the group meetings. i was one of five or six senators that ended that meeting with the white house multiple times to try to achieve some type of fiscal reform.

i have said this to the folks we were dealing with. i think have said this publicly. that process, believe it or not, at the end the meetings ended in august. and a very pleasant person to be around. people ask me what it is like. it was like a saturday round of golf. it was -- a lot of fun. it really was. kind of interesting. of think anyone ran down to put it in the hall. we had to quit on 15 because we had as said of. the president was busy -- visibly wanting to play. i enjoyed collecting $20 that he

lost. but the talks broke down for us. was evident to me that they were never serious. we put a lot of effort into offering very specific proposals i do not know if you remember, and there is no reason that you would. i wrote a detailed bill about one year and three months ago. very, very detailed. you know, you have all these gain meetings. and i think any of us ever saw word of legislative language. retook it upon ourselves to write a very detailed bill that addressed all of these bipartisan daunts. and i gave it to the white house, pelosi, reid, and said, look, use these. he's had been scored. bipartisan solutions. we used many of those in the

presentations of the white house. at the end of the day in the last meeting it was evident, the last meeting that we had with them was about one thing. is no white house really interested in doing this things in intense form of way to save medicare? and to deal with the issues -- are you really interested in that? and the answer was no, we are not. they are not interested. and so we left the meetings. what they did was immediately -- they sometimes forget that we talk to our friends on the other side of the aisle. i mean, you know, i know that we have not accomplished much together, but we talk to our friends on the other side of the aisle and immediately they got on the phone and reported in the wall street journal. i don't know if you go back and read the comments, but we said nice things. we could not get there but we

appreciated. what they said was the reason we got nowhere was the republicans would not raise taxes. that was not what the meeting was about. a meeting was about are you really willing to address the issues of medicare. today we have people over their lifetime, $120,000 as a couple in medicare taking out 359,000 out of medicare which is relevant. it does not work. people pay them for one-third of the cost. so i would say that, i would not engage in those conversations that power them because i do not think that they were ever earned i think it was optics. it was disappointing. if anything, when i left there, it broke down. immediately thereafter we then had this eerie in crisis. just a few weeks later the president asked us to, first of

all, it appeared to me that we unilaterally were going to embark on activities. the president then asked for us to write an authorization for use of force which we did, and i was glad to do. one of the highlights of my time was working with menendez and others to craft something to pass on a vote out of the senate. then we went down the path. so i would say and unless you are serious about solving problems. unless you are serious about stretching your base, which i would say this president is afraid to stretch is based, appealing to the base right now has been a problem. that is why we have not had the problem to solve the major problems of the day. he is afraid of is based, not willing to take his basin to stretch it into a place where he actually reaches an accommodation with the aside. i would say, please don't do that again. unless you are in earnest wanted to sell a problem, don't do that

again. you're better off not acting like you want to solve a problem when you really not. that breaks it down. >> senator, another question. i was wondering if you know if you influence the way -- you gave them a lot to think about. nothing wrong with that. >> i think the biggest impact on the election -- first of all, and has been widely reported that when i made those comments about the those that had been cast there were 1300 votes cast. and when i made those comments the local entity, the volkswagen plan, volkswagen in germany, with the volkswagen plan, by the way, made in germany cannot volkswagen, not vote light in

chattanooga. but they immediately said -- came out and said that the outcome of the election would have no impact on whether the plant was built, the additional line was put there are not. in some ways that was a little bit of a victory. i did not like that comment coming out because i believe that the comments that i made were absolutely true. i would never -- let me tell you this, as much as i don't like the uaw and what they have done to our country, i would never, ever in my public discourse say something that i did not believe to be 100 percent true, never. i would never say that. never would that happen. it is not worth it to me. this is a public service to me. so the company immediately came madden said that regardless of the outcome the vote would not have an impact. in some ways that was a major

victory. it was a major victory begins inside the plant the uaw was telling everyone unless they organize, unless the uaw took them over the plant was not coming near. 300 votes left. the biggest impact was those people on the ground inside the plants, employees that new, that understood that the uaw was only there for one reason, survival. it was nothing, nothing that the uaw offered them to enhance male or their families' lives. the community understood full well the negative impact that they would have on our community in our ability to attract jobs. i don't know. did the president, and on friday he said, i cannot believe people care more about german stockholders than they do the wages of the people who work in the plan.

you all saw that. but i don't know. at the end of the day i think what we did was paid attention. how many people did not read the paper? i don't know. the volkswagen plan every morning, riveted around the papers trying to decide. they are reading. every morning. add just don't know. at think the bigger impact really was the grass roots efforts that took place within the plan where people had to in between and embrace, and form below the fact that -- and most employees got it. all they were was dollar signs

he had been selling out there saying that they could not survive with that organizing the south. i think you know that the uaw had to sell 300 million in assets just to survive. they're selling investments just to survive. i don't know. who knows. i think that public officials should be able to say what they think, absolutely. the only people that were condoned to officially be inside the plant was the uaw. >> nine people what questions to mobile reroute time. thank you for coming. i hope you come back. >> appreciated. thank you so much.

[inaudible conversations] >> on capitol hill today the senate armed services committee held a hearing with military officials from the u.s. strategic command. the officials testified before the committee members about the command current programs and practices. a number of security issues were discussed that range from missile defenses cyber security. here is a brief portion. >> what kind of damage could incur? >> i think that they could shut down the power in the northeast

as an example, shut down the new york stock exchange, removed 80, set down some of our government now works, and backed out transportation areas. those are things that -- release chemicals. that would be harder. they could get into the systems that affect the water supply. they could do flows on the rivers. costing trillions of dollars potentially especially in the financial. >> and you are telling ask congress has not given you and your colleagues the tool to deal with this threat? >> that is correct. we need a way to work with industry and understand it. >> if all of this could happen and we could help it seems like we would. do you agree? >> i agree. >> you can see all of the senate

armed services committee later or online anytime. >> c-span2 providing live coverage of the u.s. senate floor proceedings and keep public policy immense and every weekend book tv. for 15 years the only television network devoted to an author's. created by the table -- cable-tv industry. watch us, like us on facebook and polos on twitter. >> in the senate today as a group of democratic senators spoke about the health care law and the positive impact it was having none americans pointing to the laws attempt to reduce waste and fraud and strengthen current pro grams such as medicare. this is a little more than 30 minutes. several months the affordable care act in my opinion at least is going to become less

is going to become less >> the affordable care act will become less importance there are more positive stories better coverage, or getting cofd coverr the first time. and the let me say, in my state of new york, the initial rollout of a.c.a. has been a big success. we didn't have the problems of a web site because we did our own, and because we have a lot of competition, as was intended on the exchanges, people are getting very, very good offers, and a large, large number of people are getting their costs reduced. reduced. a large number of people are getting their cost reduced. i would like to tell one story. a friend of mine goes to a hairdresser in a conservative member of new york. the person who owns the beauty shop was very conservative.

she was really upset. she said, look, i looked at that website and it is going to cost -- i am a nice person. i pay for health care. it costs me hundreds of dollars more per employee. i don't know if i can afford it. the same business. well, that person talked to all for friends. she talked all about it. i spoke to my friends a few weeks ago. guess what. this very same person actually got health care on that new york website that reduced the cost of health care for employees by 100 couple of dollars each. she was happy. of course i asked my friend to make sure she puts that on her website and tells all of her conservative friends about that the that story will be repeated over and over again.

there will be millions of seniors to realize they can get a free checkout and keep their health good. .. people who realize they can continue their health insurance and stay on their parents' health insurance from age 21 to 26. millions of people are going to find out that when they either, god forbid, someone in their family has a preexisting condition or someone in a family they know, that they can get that health care. and millions of millions of businesses are going to see that the costs of health care are actually going up at a much smaller rate than they used to. so all these good things will start mounting, and the start mounting, and the the positives about aca will grow in the public's mind and eventually i believe it will catch up in the senate and the house and then something else too will happen madam president and that is this. lots of people who are really not affect you directly by aca

have had fear put into their souls. they listen to the right-wing talk radio and they hear oh they may lose all their health care or their costs will go way up. what they are finding is it's not happening. now i'm at a firefighter, a firefighter who works for new york city, not a volunteer firefighter, a few months ago and he said i know this obamacare is going to kill me. it's going to greatly reduce the health care and i'm getting as a new york city firefighter. now they get very good health care. they should, they are risking their lives for us. he said it's going to happen i hear in the new year january 1, 2014. well, i saw the firefighter a few weeks ago and that firefighter said to me, hey i still have my health care. nothing changed. well of course nothing changed. all the horror stories that have

been launched by so many on the right-wing talk radio and those who just hate obamacare whether it works or not are starting to fade. so we are seeing two things happen at once. we are seeing the positives increase and the negatives decrease. and we are seeing it particularly with senior citizens. our senior citizens because the doughnut hole is filled many millions and millions of them are spending much less on prescription drugs than they had to. it's a huge benefit to them. since aca was enacted more than 7 million seniors and people with disabilities are saying, $9 billion. that's a huge amount of money into seniors many of whom are on fixed incomes that is a dramatic savings for them.

well, something else is happening to our seniors. they are getting free check-ups. that does two things. first it saves them money out of their own pockets but second, it reduces our health care costs because we all know an ounce of prevention is worth -- i think a pound of cure if i have my denominations of weight correct. and so i do i am told by my colleague from massachusetts and connecticut. and check-ups, free check-ups are just that prevention we need it will not only save the seniors but save our system. billions and billions and billions of dollars for years and decades to come. somebody who finds a growth on their skin and gets it removed before it comes cancerous. somebody who might get a colonoscopy or mammography or a

exam and is saved from prostate cancer, all of that is going to happen. all that is going to happen so the bottom line here is very simple and that is that people are learning the positives of aca. the web site is being improved. more people are signing up. in my state of new york alone more than 250,000 people with medicare saved $246 million on prescription drugs. the numbers are higher when you count up to today because that was only in, that was the first 10 months through november 1 of 2013. the benefits are all over the place and one of the thing. that is not the subject of the week that i think we have to keep mentioning it. we are reducing the budget deficit through the aca.

i know our colleagues on the other side of the aisle are very careful about budget issues. good, they should be. well health care costs are declining and declining significantly. some of that is due to the recession but almost every expert says much of that is due to the aca. national health care expenditures for instance in 2012 grew by 3.7%, meaning that the growth from 2009 to 2012 was the slowest since government collected information and that was in the 60s. the percentage of health care spending for the first time, the percentage of gdp actually shrunk from 17.3 to 17.2. at the same time the solvency of medicare's hospital insurance fund decreased and costs cut. so this is great news. the bottom line, i know our

colleagues on the other side of the aisle think they hit political gold when they attacked the aca and called for its appeal but the american people don't want repeal and secondly as we move on in time the positives of the aca will become more apparent. the negatives that people perceive of aca will decline and i believe by november this issue will not be the political goldmine that our colleagues think it is. without mr. president i yield the floor. >> mr. president. >> the senator from massachusetts. >> thank you mr. president thank you senator schumer my colleague from new york for your great leadership on this issue. and your strong words. i am pleased to join with my colleagues today on the floor to speak about the positive impact of the affordable care act and the impact it is having on our nation's health and particularly

the health of our seniors. we have all heard about the benefits of the affordable care act in terms of increasing coverage. over 4 million people, 4 million people have already signed up for the affordable private health insurance through the state and federal exchanges. millions more have signed up for medicaid coverage and millions more young people are now able to stay on their parents insurance policies until they are 26. and the numbers are growing. but as important as this figure is the affordable care act is in just about coverage for the uninsured. it's also about improving the quality of care and the quality of coverage for all americans, including our seniors. seniors in this country rely on the medicare program and they should rely on the medicare program because medicare respects a promise that we made

as a country to ensure that people who contribute to the program during their working years will have their health care needs taken care of after the age of 65. we have a duty to keep that promise and we need to build on that promise. to keep the promise of medicare we have to make sure that the program stays afloat. the affordable care act does this by improving the quality of care, by coordinating care and by better delivery under medicare so that we reduce waste in the program and we use medicare dollars in a way that improves health outcomes for our seniors. you know the republicans have a very different approach to medicare solvency. they want to reduce benefits. they want to increase premiums and co-pays so it's harder for seniors to afford to go to a

doctor and they even to and medicare's guaranteed benefits entirely by turning it into a voucher system. think about that. lower benefits, charge more and medicare as we know it. these approaches are wrong. they do not reflect our values and they also don't reflect good policy because cutting medicare benefits won't stop seniors from having heart attacks. it won't stop people from getting sick. it will just push them into a -- emergency rooms and a private insurance system which is more expensive and less efficient than medicare or worse, it will prevent them entirely from getting the medical care that they need. fortunately the republican vision is not the law of the land. the affordable care act is the law of the land and it is already showing progress in

improving the solvency of medicare and the quality of care for our seniors. now we can already see how the accountable care organization is created under the affordable care act is saving money. the pioneer care organizations five of which are now operating in massachusetts have already saved medicare nearly $147 million while continuing to deliver high-quality care. new standards for hospital reimbursements have reduced the number of people who need to be readmitted, meaning that for seniors 130,000 fewer medicare beneficiaries had to check back and to a hospital last year. thanks to these and other changes the medicare trust fund will be solvent for nearly 10 years longer than was good

before we passed to the affordable care act. the results are clear, when it comes to our seniors the affordable care at is saving money and saving lives. but the affordable care act does more. it builds on the promise of medicare by improving prevention coverage and reducing actual out-of-pocket for our seniors. last year over 70% of seniors, that's 25.4 million people in medicare visited their doctor and received a preventive service like a critical colonoscopy or a lifesaving lifesaving mammograms. they received it for free, for free because of the affordable care act. and despite high drug prices the average senior in america saved

an average of $1200 on their prescription drugs in 2013 because of the affordable care act closing the doughnut hole in medicare part d prescription drug coverage. the affordable care act has made changes, reducing the costs cost for seniors, expanding benefits and reducing wasteful spending in medicare. at the same time that we have improved the solvency of medicare so when i hear republicans talk about repealing the affordable care act i wonder what alternative universe they are living in because in this real world there should be no confusion about what repealing the affordable care act would actually mean for our seniors. higher costs for prescription drugs, higher costs for preventive services, reduce benefits and a medicare program

that would go bankrupt literally 10 years sooner. the affordable care act is working to help seniors with their expenses and keep the cost of health care down. we need to improve and build on the progress the law has made, not argue over tearing them down because this shouldn't be about politics. this should he about keeping the promise that we made to our seniors. it's about building on that promise and i will continue to fight for them. mr. president, i yield the floor. >> mr. president. >> the gentleman from connecticut traded. >> thank you very much mr. president. i appreciate my colleague senator warren and senator schumer senator murray for joining us on the floor today

and joined by senators stabenow in a few moments. we are kicking off the affordable care works campaign which of course is designed to tell what has been the untold for much of the last six months which is the increasing good news about the millions of americans for which the affordable care act is working. indeed for many of them changing their lives. the announcement was made this week that 4 million americans have now signed up for the private health care exchanges. over 10 million americans all across the country now have insurance today who didn't have it prior to the passage of the law either because of these private exchanges or because of increased eligibility in medicaid or because of the loss provision that young men and women under the age of 26 can stay on their parents insurance for 10 million people now across

the country have access to insurance that they didn't have before we pass this law. as soon it -- senator schumer said there's even more good news because we now know the second promise of the act that is going to reduce the deficit is true as well. cbo tells us from the 10 year period covering the enactment of the law to a decade later we are going to save about $1.2 trillion that will be additionally estimated and current trajectories we are going to be $250 billion under cbo's initial estimate for federal health care expenditures on an annual basis. that is big savings to the taxpayers and when you combine that with the millions of americans do as you can see how the affordable care act is working. now there is still work to do and there will be debates on the floor in the senate about ways in which we can change and fix the affordable care act. we are no doubt going to be

bumps along the road in no doubt going to be places where we can find bipartisan agreement on how we can fix the act and make it work even better. the answer from a republican colleagues has been simple so far to simply repeal the law. they want to repeal in place of do we have yet to see any evidence of that replacement. i think when the presiding officer and i served together in the house of representatives we probably witnessed 30 or 40 different votes to repeal all or part of the affordable care act and never once were part of the vote to replace that. people don't want this vote repealed so we go back to the day where insurance companies ran our health care when 10 millions americans have insurance are back uninsured. they want the sack to be implemented and work on making it better for their understanding day by day that the affordable care act is

working. specifically for seniors they are our unique benefits of many of which have been glossed over because at the outset of the implementation at some pretty important things happen. sometimes people weren't even looking. first the doughnut hole got cut in half almost overnight. the first year they got a $250 rebate check. by the end of this decade the doughnut hole will be completely eliminated. the average savings for seniors senators stabenow will talk about his been $1200. people often don't know this because of the affordable care act. when you go and and a drug all of a sudden costs 50% less than it did there is no stamp on that bill that says courtesy of the affordable care act but the fact is that without the affordable care at seniors over the course of the last three years will

have spent $9 billion more on drugs. a number so big it's hard to fathom but the affordable care act has saved seniors $9 billion an average of $1200 per senior. on top of that when seniors get their annual check-up or they go when for a cancer screening or tobacco cessation program those preventative health care visits are now free for 25 million seniors that have access those programs across the country. in my state of connecticut 76,000 people with medicare have taken advantage of free annual wellness visits under the health care law. we are seeing tremendous benefits for seniors all across the country but it's not just about the doughnut hole and not just about preventative health care. in 2012 the medicare part d deductible drops by $22 to $140.

that's the first time in the history of medicare that the medicare part d deductible has actually been reduced. thanks to the efficiencies being garnered in medicare part d grow graham by the health care law. second, medicare advantage plans now can charge or the medicaid for things like chemotherapy skilled nursing and other specialized services, protection savings thousands of dollars for seniors. in the first three years of the affordable care act medicare recovered $15 billion in fraudulent payments under medicare because of new tools designed to root out fraud and waste and abuse under the affordable care act. older americans that haven't yet reached medicare age are saving money because they act reduced the amount of discrimination in premiums against older americans by saying that insurance companies can't charge more than

three times what they charged younger workers what they charged older workers. so for seniors in particular we are trying to make it clear that some of the unnoticed benefits, the fact that nobody is asking you for a co-pay when you go in for medicare check-up you are saving money every time you go into the pharmacy. those didn't happen magically. those didn't happen because of republican health care policies. it happened because of the affordable care act. finally mr. president before i turn it over to my colleagues senators stabenow i want to address some of the mythology we have been hearing on the floor of the senate in the past few days about medicare advantage. no doubt there are reductions in the payment from a federal government to medicare advantage plans in the affordable care act. why? because we were overcompensating private health care companies for running the medicare advantage plan.

we were giving him 13% more than it costs medicare itself to run the medicare program. this doesn't make a lot of sense. private companies tell us they can do things for the same price as the federal government and in this case we are paying medicare private insurers a lot more than the cost of medicare for running the program. we decided we would eliminate that subsidy and guess what? the news has been pretty remarkable. in fact 30% more seniors are on medicare advantage plans today than when we passed into law in premiums under medicare advantage of come down by 10% during that time. more people on medicare damaged plants less cost in premiums and the average medicare participant has 18 different plans from which to choose from so all of this apocalyptic talk about what was going to happen when they pass the affordable care act with respect to medicare advantage and all this new talk about what will happen when the subsidies get further reduced just has not come true.

cheaper medicare advantage plans more seniors on them and plenty of across-the-board availability so mr. president i'm really pleased to have been joined by a half-dozen of our colleagues to tell the story about what the aca has done for seniors and we will come down to the floor every week and stand with patients and consumers every week to talk about the benefits for seniors and the benefits for cancer patients, the benefits for women, the benefits for taxpayers all an effort to try to prove to the american people what millions of americans are finding out and that is the affordable care act works and with that i yield the floor. actually before i yield the floor if i could ask one unanimous consent which is that my legal fellow don bell -- floor privileges for the remainder of the calendar year. >> mr. president.

>> the senator from michigan. >> thank you mr. president. first i want to thank the senator from connecticut for his advocacy for seniors, for children, for families and small businesses to have access to affordable quality health insurance powerful voice and also to congratulate his state of connecticut and the governor of connecticut who are working very hard. i know are doing a great job. their insurance pool for health care exchange providing more affordable health insurance for the citizens in connecticut so i want to thank you for all of your leadership. i rise also today to talk about the fact that millions of american families today have access to more affordable health care. seniors, children, small business's and others given the

opportunity to have the health care that they are paying for and know that they can get the health care that they need even if they have a pre-existing condition because of the affordable care act. i want to take a few moments as well today to talk about what this means for our senior citizens, for people on medicare obviously medicare is a great american success story and something that i strongly support as my colleagues do that are here speaking today. as part of health reform we wanted to strengthen medicare for the future. we protect the guaranteed benefits under medicare. we have shored up a program so that the trust fund is now solvent until 2026 and put the they're going forward as other savings occur over the long run and it is working because of some very tangible things that

we have done to put more money in the pocket of our senior citizens and to create the opportunity for them to have access to affordable health health care. i often think about the letters, the e-mails that i've gotten from people in michigan prior to health reform and the kinds of stories that people tell me and used to tell me all the time before we strengthened medicare. i will read one from a senior citizen for more in michigan who wrote me a letter prior to health reform talking about the gap in coverage under prescription drugs under medicare part d. there is a gap and you get no help and if you're prescription drug costs are very high than it kicks in again so some people call that the doughnut hole. it's a gap in coverage and a senior from warren told me this. he said i cannot afford all of

my drugs so i have to stop taking one of them. the least riskiest one and i have to scrounge free samples from my doctor's office while paying higher retail prices for the other two. that was before we passed health reform and now on average in our country seniors have $1200, $1200 back in their pockets since we passed health reform to be able to help them with their prescription drug costs. why? because we are closing that gap. that gap is going to go away. there's going to be nomar cliff, no more doughnut hole, number gap in coverage in right seniors across the country are saving on average $1200 more money back in their pocket. when you think about it in big

terms there are more than 7.3 million seniors and people with disabilities who are on medicare who found themselves in that gap in coverage and the health reform law in the big picture has saved them about $9 billion. on average $1200 for an individual but all total so far about nine billion dollars, $9 billion more available to seniors put money back in their pocket to do what? to pay the rent, to pay the electric bill. a state like michigan to pay the high heating bills because of the winter that we have been having to put gas in the car, and maybe to do something fun with the grandkids and pay for that birthday present. maybe it's doing something else that is needed. whatever it is, the idea that the average person who is retired on medicare has over

$1000 back in their pocket now because of health reform and what we have been able to do to strengthen medicare. it's a great thing and the problem is that is what republicans want to take away. that's what they want to take away. that is what will be taken away if it is repealed if one of the over 40 different repealed votes were actually to happen from what the house of representatives has already done. and let me share another letter from mary ann from rockford who wrote last fall to say that she is sick of the efforts to repeal health care reform. health care reform has already helped millions of seniors like myself for pre-preventative services for low-cost prescription drugs saving money. we are saving money. let me talk about another area where seniors are saving money and that is the animal check up

we always want folks to have. they used to have co-pays and deductibles. today under medicare because of health reform when his senior walks into the doctor's office how much are they paying for that annual check-up? zero, zero. because of health reform. we don't want any seniors to feel that they can get that check up, they can get the mammograms that they need or that colonoscopy that we all look forward to getting that they can get other kinds of preventative care for cancer screenings are flu shots or whatever it is because of the co-pays and deductibles. today the cost of that check-up of the preventative services is zero. if health reform is repealed that is repealed. that is what folks that won't repeal are doing, what they want to take away. so i join with my colleagues who feel strongly that we need to

make sure we are keeping in place those positive things that are making a real difference in the lives of senior citizens, of children, families. if there are things going forward they need to be fixed we need to fix fix it and we will. but we certainly do not want to go back to the days when seniors are spending $1200 more out of their pocket for their medicine on average or when they are paying for the cost of an annual check-up that is absolutely critical that they get for their life going forward. i am proud to stand with my colleagues saying let's talk together about how we make sure things work going forward but let's not go back to the time when all of these important services and protections were not in place.